


she’s heard legends about reaping what you sow

by mollivanders



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lost
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is this place?” Juliet asks the first (only) man she sees in these empty caverns.</p><p>His hair is greasy and hangs loosely around his face, and where once he might have cared (or even been proud, from the look of his eyes) he just crosses his arms and stares at her coldly. A dozen responses are waiting on his lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she’s heard legends about reaping what you sow

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: she’s heard legends about reaping what you sow**  
>  Fandoms: LOST/Harry Potter  
> Characters: Juliet Burke, Severus Snape  
> Rating: G  
> Word Count: 1,908  
> Author Note: Spoilers through LOST Season 5 and _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_. Italicized sections are from Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_.  
>  Summary: Juliet's finding she's always a lone wanderer, even with company.  
> Disclaimer: LOST belongs to _ABC_ and Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and _Warner Bros._ , I own nothing.

_Destiny,  
That hath to instrument this lower world  
And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea  
Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island  
Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men  
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;  
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown  
Their proper selves._

“What is this place?” Juliet asks the first (only) man she sees in these empty caverns.

His hair is greasy and hangs loosely around his face, and where once he might have cared (or even been proud, from the look of his eyes) he just crosses his arms and stares at her coldly. A dozen responses are waiting on his lips.

“Do you lack all power of observation?” His question mocks her (but it’s only an echo of what he used to be).

Bile rises in her throat; memories of Ben push forward past other equally unwelcome thoughts. She’s not used to being in the dark.

Behind them, a train whooshes by, white lights making strange shadows on the wall and its weight rocking the chamber. It doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop, and Juliet wonders if she should worry.

“Clearly you’re stuck here as well,” she snipes back, “so you may as well be civil about it.”

The man sighs and shifts his weight against the wall (he looks unsuited to sitting, those robes begging for a full gust of air). “We’re here,” he replies and the weariness bleeds into his voice before he can stop it. “And the train doesn’t stop, hasn’t stopped once in all the time I’ve been here.”

“How long has it been?” she asks, peering down the blackening tunnels. “Do you know?”

The man shrugs, falls silent.

Juliet sits on the only bench here (it doesn’t even have seat backs) and waits. Maybe the train will stop for her, and maybe this man has only just arrived as well.

She won’t consider the alternative (an eternity of silence and missed chances).

Another train rushes by, wind tossing her hair and burning her eyes as she squints into the bright lights. Even though she’s sitting just feet from its passage, the train doesn’t pull at her. It’s like she doesn’t even exist.

“I’m Juliet,” she offers when it’s gone (she has nothing left to lose).

She doesn’t holds her breath, doesn’t count her nonexistent heartbeats, until he finally answers: “Severus Snape.”

“Nice to meet you, Severus,” she replies, her back to him and her eyes on the platform.

 

_His complexion is  
perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his  
hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,  
for our own doth little advantage. If he be not  
born to be hanged, our case is miserable._

An infinite number of trains later, he’s still leaning against the wall and she’s still on the bench, watching the (not) chances slip by. The only difference is now they’re asking questions to pass the time, like who their favorite author is and what their mother’s maiden names were.

“What is this place?” she finally asks again, turning to look at him. His eyes are the same, his hair still hangs in his face (a statue). “Purgatory?” Because by now, Juliet’s sure they’re dead. Or some variation of that.

He shrugs but answers her all the same. “I think they don’t know what to do with us yet. They’re deciding.”

“Who is? God?” Juliet scoffs. His eyes narrow.

“My estimate would be the people we killed actually,” he returns. She falls silent, guilty. “Who did you kill?” he asks, a strange inflection in his voice, and she jumps because he’s leaning over her shoulder for a better look at her face. She shuts her eyes.

“Everyone I cared about,” she answers. He smiles briefly until she says, “I’m not sorry.”

“Well, I am,” he bites out impatiently, but walks around the bench to sit beside her.

Juliet would never have figured him for repentant.

 

_Come unto these yellow sands,  
And then take hands:  
Courtsied when you have and kiss'd  
The wild waves whist,  
Foot it featly here and there;  
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.  
Hark, hark!_

“Come on,” she says one day, bumping his shoulder with her own. “I’m sure there’s a way out of here.” The seconds have been ticking by interminably and she’s itching for some action, unused to staring at blank walls and counting trains. There’s a roaring that’s either in her ears or outside (senses are relative now) and there’s no time like the present.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he sneers, but she grabs his hand and drags him to his feet. He doesn’t really keep up but she pulls him along behind her, determined to find an exit.

They find a ladder leading up a narrow hatch. _Of course_ , she thinks to herself. Her hand is on the first rung when he pushes her back. “I’ll go first,” he argues.

They’re dead, and she knows this, but she lets him take the lead. Old habits die hard, and if he’s intent on being _this man_ , well, she’s not going to take it from him.

“All clear,” he drawls from the top, and the timbre of his voice is too familiar, so Juliet focuses, grabs the first rung and pulls herself up, foot by foot, until she hits blinding sunlight. 

Outside, there are no trains, just an endless white forest made of tall white trees, and the rumbling in her ears is clear now; she can see storm clouds on the horizon.

But here the sunlight is good light, and as it beats down on her, shining on her hair and her face, the warmth reminds her of what it’s like to be alive. Living and warm. So she smiles and takes his hand, taking the lead again (she’s tempted to hum a tune to the weather).

Beside her, Severus sighs and clenches his other hand, scanning the tree line. Old habits die hard.

Juliet finds that when you’re dead, walking isn’t much different from sitting, so they wander without purpose. The scenery never seems to change and the sun is always ahead of them; it gives Juliet hope, because if there’s no end to where they are, at least she’s not trapped. She’s escaped.

“Why aren’t you sorry?” he asks her after a thousand miles, helping her scramble over a fallen tree. She knows what he means.

“They were all dead anyway, anyhow,” is a half-truth, so she adds, “and at least I took some with me, but I don’t remember the details.”

(She remembers Jack, and understanding and forgiveness. But that’s all gone now.)

“That’s why, then,” Severus replies. “You like it here, and you don’t really want to leave.”

“What about you?” she asks. “Do you like it here?”

His smile is grim. “No, but I know I deserve to be here.”

 

_Their great guilt,  
Like poison given to work a great time after,  
Now 'gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you  
That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly  
And hinder them from what this ecstasy  
May now provoke them to._

When night falls (when the sun disappears into the storm), they make camp out of habit. He doesn’t ask where she learned to kill a boar and she doesn’t ask how he doesn’t know how to start a fire. The food tastes good in her mouth until it turns to ash in her throat; she gags and spits it out. 

At this point, it’s just another wasted life at her hands.

Juliet doesn’t quite fall asleep that night, but she wakes to rain and whispers in the forest; when she sits up, there are shadows in the trees. Remembering stories about bandits and ghosts, she freezes, irrationally hoping for invisibility.

Across their burnt-out fire, she eyes Severus clenching his hand like he wants something that’s not there (anymore). The voices only fade away with the lighting, and when they do Juliet looks straight at Severus, dispensing with all pretense.

“We have to get out of this forest.”

They march with purpose that day, following the dwindling sun beyond the clouds. It’s setting low against the treetops when they finally break out of the forest and onto sandy beaches. Waves lash at the shoreline and Juliet, at last, gives up hope.

Even if it’s different, it all ends up being the same. She’s wasted their lives for no reason at all.

 _It’s beautiful,_ Severus thinks, and relaxes his hand.

They make camp again but don’t try to build a fire. Instead, they build a mock fortress of dead branches and wet sand, like they’re children playing make-believe. Severus works more slowly than Juliet and when she asks what’s taking so long he stares down his long nose at her. 

“I’m not fixing your section when it falls apart,” he replies, but as he builds consoles himself. _Here’s a chance to repeat all your sins_. He looks into the forest and sees shadows, so many shadows. Maybe it’s his imagination, but maybe he’s seeing red.

He wonders if Potter is out there (he’s not sure which one). He knows if he is, then she’s out there with him and waiting. Deciding.

That night the voices are just as close as they were when they were in the trees, and Juliet crouches against their flimsy fortress walls, hiding from the way the shadow voices carry across the rain and wind.

In a half dream, she hears Severus whisper in her ear:

_Remember I have done thee worthy service;  
told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings,   
served without or grudge or grumblings_

 

When she wakes, he’s already gone.

Juliet’s first instinct is to cry but she controls herself before she realizes she couldn’t even if she wanted to. _A side effect of being dead_ , she thinks, and laughs mirthlessly. Without Severus here beside her, the storm seems stronger and wilder (as if it was only biding its time).

She abandons the fortress and wanders the beach, not really expecting to find Severus and not really sure what else to do. Worse, the shadows are real now, faces she can see, following her every move. They hover among the trees, ghosts deciding her fate while she’s left to fend for herself (same as always). One by one, she recognizes them: Goodwin; Jack; Sawyer; Kate. _Kate_ (she’s the clearest of all). 

The others walk with Juliet, up and down the beach, but Kate disappears from time to time (always changing her mind). Still undecided. Juliet wants to care, but mostly she wants her gone, because every time she comes back the storm closes in on Juliet more and by now, she has no place left to run. It distracts her and she doesn’t even realize the shadows are closing in on her too (but by then she’s run out of beach to flee to).

All other choices gone, so she faces the ocean and laughs wildly into the storm. She’s lost everyone she cares about anyway.

 _Sink or swim_ , she thinks, and knows that everything here is upside down.

She dives forward into the waves, lets them carry her out to sea, and shuts her eyes as she’s rocked out to sea and down, down to fathoms below, a roaring in her ears until there’s nothing left to hear.

 

_On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise  
of thunder and lightning heard.  
Enter a Master and a Boatswain_

_Finis_


End file.
